The Kremlin announces that Putin would meet with Netanyahu soon

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have agreed to hold a meeting "shortly," the Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov stated, Interfax reports.

According to Peskov, the meeting of the leaders of the two countries is needed to "discuss current bilateral relationships and exchange views on various international and regional issues." He also said that during the conversation, Putin congratulated Netanyahu on the New Year. "The leaders wished each other and the peoples of the two countries all the best in the New Year," Peskov stated.

Netanyahu and Putin last met at the end of August 2017. Then, the Prime Minister of Israel arrived to meet with the Russian president in Sochi "as a matter of urgency" due to the situation in Syria. According to him, Moscow and Tel Aviv were in constant contact to prevent clashes between the Israeli army and the Russian troops involved in the operation in Syria at that time.

Netanyahu also stated that Iran was a threat not only to Israel but to the entire world.

In October 2017, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu held a telephone conversation, during which, as the Kremlin press service reported, the leaders discussed the Syrian settlement, the Iranian nuclear program, as well as the results of the referendum in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq.